Arbiter insists on complaints in MalteseChairman says that new office within the financial services made the request in accordance with the language used in tribunal proceedings

The recently established financial services arbiter has started accepting complaints, however, they should be filed in Maltese, it has insisted.

In a statement sent in English and Maltese, as is the usual practice in Malta, the Arbiter for Financial Services this week informed the public that complaints could start being lodged with its office.As of this month, complaints are being handled by this new specialised, independent institution instead of the Malta Financial Services Authority.

The office, established by law, is headed by lawyer and former Labour candidate Reno Borg, and its competence will be to award up to €250,000 in compensation for cases dating back to 2004.

Non-Maltese speakers can still submit complaints in English. However, although they will be accepted, the office reserves the right to request a translation

However, “the Office of the Arbiter insists that complaints should be made in Maltese”. When contacted, chair of the management and administration board Geoffrey Bezzina said the office hadmade this request as all tribunal proceedings were conducted in Maltese.

Non-Maltese speakers could still submit complaints in English, he added. However, although they would be accepted and registered, the office reserved the right to request a Maltese translation.

Mr Bezzina said that, where possible, complaints filed with the office would first go for mediation with the aim of reaching a compromise. If an agreement was reached, the complaint would end there and not appear before the arbiter.The complaint form is available from www.financial-arbiter.org.mt, 8007 2366 or from the Financial Services offices in St Calcedonius Square, Floriana.Complaints submitted through a letter and not the prescribed form will also be accepted, and they need to be registered with the office against a payment of €25.The office noted, meanwhile, that “frivolous or vexatious” cases would be refused by the arbiter in accordance with the law.

[WATCH] Education minister Evarist Bartolo: ‘Bilingualism part of Maltese identity’Education minister says that exposure to two languages helps children's development and is at the core of Malta's economic success

Education minister Evarist Bartolo today launched a language policy for the early years in a child's life.Addressing an event to celebrate different languages Bartolo said the country needs to strengthen the levels of both English and Maltese languages and even more work to do when it comes to young people’s knowledge of a third language.

Rubbishing the outdated notion that exposure to more than one language at a young age confuses children, Bartolo cited a number of studies which have in fact shown that this sort of exposure actually helps cognitive development and children's overall learning abilities.

“The policy is intended to provide national guidelines for bilingual education at a young age by fostering a positive attitude towards both English and Maltese and is designed to deal with challenges,” he said.The policy includes recommendations and guidelines for parents and teachers, childcare administrators as well as those training teachers.

Bartolo spoke of how both English and Maltese are a part of our national identity and how both are crucial to us as a nation.

“We must overcome stigma towards people who speak a different language,” he said, adding that it is irrelevant whether Maltese is somebody’s first language because “we are not a bilingual country simply on paper.”

"The fact that someone is from a particular locality or is part of a social group does not matter. At the end of the day we need to accept the reality and tailor our efforts to that reality," the minister added.Bartolo explained how it would be a shame if Malta were to lose its ability to communicate in more than one language and stressed that the fact that most people can speak English gives the country a competitive advantage and is a part of the reason foreign companies choose to invest in Malta.

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This is a Racial and Cultural issue - not an Economic one, as the Minister stresses. You see, he comes from the Squalid Socialist camp, where Economics dominate their thinking. And Yes! Speaking two languages will confuse and de-racinate children in their formative years -

especially, when the two languages are inimical, inassimilable: one European, the other Semitic. A Semitic Cuqlajta imposed by the Arabs, during their 400 or so years of conquest and colonisation of Malta. A language that has harmed us, incalculably, lobotomising our children.

We may not agree with The Hon. Evarist Bartolo, especially in the field of Racial Assimilation, Multiculturalism ("Malta is not Multicultural enough"), etc.,However, he remains one of the the better Ministers, amongst that Squallid Socialist gang of opportunists and dilettantes. Read post 1.

Maltese academics worried about proposed language act changesCouncil could end up with a majority of members having no Maltese expertise, academics warn

Leading Maltese academics are concerned that proposed amendments to a Maltese Language Act will dilute the level of language expertise among members of the Maltese Language Council. In a joint statement issued this morning, six entities representing Maltese language academics noted that proposed changes could lead to a situation where a majority of council members had no qualifications in Maltese. The changes envision widening council membership from 11 to 13, with the Broadcasting Authority and University's Department of Translation and Interpretation also being represented.As a result, seven out of the 13 members on the Maltese Language Council might end up being not fully qualified in the language, the two entities noted. "We do not agree that the majority of Council members could be persons who are not fully qualified in Maltese," they wrote.The proposed changes also exclude Akkademja tal-Malti members from the pool of candidates for a council seat representing Maltese organisations - although the Akkademja will continue to have its own separate seat on the council.Heads of technical committees, which until now were appointed from a list of people recommended by the Akkademja tal-Malti and University's Maltese Department, would instead by proposed by five out of the council's 13 members. "These appointments have always been based on the academic qualifications of the persons involved," the statement read, arguing that changes would mean "five members who might not be qualified in Maltese will be able to nominate the head of a technical committee." A third shortcoming, they added, was that proposed changes granted the council the final word on technical language questions when it found itself in disagreement with a commission of experts, meaning a council with a majority of members lacking Maltese qualifications could be empowered to take important decisions about the language. Under current rules, the council can reject commission proposals but it cannot amend them. The statement was signed by the Akkademja tal-Malti, the Maltese Departments at the University of Malta and Junior College, the Department of Linguistics, Għaqda tal-Malti and Għaqda tal-Qarrejja tal-Provi tal-Malti.

Our language is one of the most powerful forces uniting and identifying us as a nation. The survival of the Maltese language is probably our largest claim to a distinctly Maltese identity. Still, this country appears to have an existential problem with both its official languages none of which is being spoken or written well.

The National Council for the Maltese Language was founded 11 years ago. Its work is to regulate new words coming into Maltese and to promote the standards of Maltese in the educational field and other sectors. The aim of the council is language planning and promotion of the Maltese language, thus improving it by modernising its structures.

Like the Academie Français (the French Academy), which is the pre-eminent council for the French language with a history stretching back 380 years, the National Council for the Maltese Language is a vitally important body in sustaining the integrity and relevance of the Maltese language in a fast-changing world dominated by the English language.Fully aware of his duty to protect the Maltese language, as well as enhance the bilingualism of Malta, which is such a crucial part of Malta’s attraction to foreign direct investment and the commercial success of the country in a highly competitive world, Education Minister Evarist Bartolo is taking steps to enhance the teaching of both the English and Maltese languages. In both language areas, he is conscious of treading on many vested interests and historical political issues.Mr Bartolo has proposed a number of legal amendments to make the council “more representative, democratic and accountable”. He has understandably reacted to criticism by some leading academics that changes to the Maltese Language Act could weaken the council and, consequently, the language itself.

Six entities – L-Akkademja tal-Malti, the Institute of Linguistics, Għaqda tal-Malti – Università, Għaqda tal-Qarrejja tal-Provi and the Departments of Maltese at the University of Malta and the Junior College – have voiced concern that the new council would have a majority of members who were not necessarily qualified in Maltese. Concern was also expressed that the new proposals could lead to members not qualified in Maltese being able to nominate the head of the council’s technical committees and make important decisions about technical language questions.The issues raised go back more than a year. The Ministry of Education has pointed out in its response that all stakeholders, including the six entities now making representations, participated in the consultation process led by well-known and established academics, including the council’s president, held over a year ago, as well as in the National Public Forum convened in November 2015.Mr Bartolo has given a firm assurance about the future “quality and competence” of those selected for the technical committees and that “entities will appoint qualified and competent representatives without any political interference”. In view of the minister’s political hands-off behaviour over the decision on the American University of Malta by the independent National Commission for Further and Higher Education, this assurance deserves credibility.Although the concerns expressed by the various entities in this saga are not to be dismissed lightly, it is as well to note that there is inevitably an element of special pleading at stake – reflecting the various competing academic interests involved. There appears, however, no reason to doubt that the minister’s proposals seek to bridge these competing interests and are designed to find the most pragmatic solutions possible to this important aspect of our national life.

The immense Cultural Damage, this minuscule group have wrought on our children, since 1971.When the Squallid Socialists gave them free rein to turn us into Arabs.And they did, with an alacrity and resentment against all of us, who preferred to Think, SPEAK and Act European.

Language reflects Race - and We are not Arabs and therefore, this claque is alien to us.And so, our People must be left free to choose WHAT language they prefer, to speak it openly.We do not want these Cultural Tyrants, these Language Talibans to impose themselves on our children.

Leading academics threaten to boycott language councilProposed law amendments will weaken council, they say

Leading academics will boycott the National Maltese Language Council if the government goes ahead with the proposed amendments to the Language Act.

Six entities representing Maltese language academics yesterday reiterated their protest against the government’s proposals to amend the law, which they believe will weaken the council by drastically reducing academic input.

They called on the government and the Opposition to protect the consensus brought about by the council over the past 10 years.The Akkademja tal-Malti and the Department of Maltese at the University of Malta have worked with the council on several projects – including bilingual signage at the hospital and the publication of Agius de Soldanis’s dictionary among others....

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"The Akkademja tal-Malti and the Department of Maltese at the University of Malta have worked with the council on several projects – including bilingual signage at the hospital"

What a joke these Culture Distorter are!Fuck off to Libya and practice your Arab cuqlajta - that's where you belong. You have done untold damage on our People; you have Arabized us, de-racinated us.

As a seed germinates through the surface of the soil, its seedling in time matures into the plant its genome is programmed to become. In similar autochthonous behaviour language sprouts through the fertile soil of sound, intonation, tonality, ideation, visualisation and notional, thence onto its eventual realisation of ‘meaning’ following a complex progression of mental abstractions.This cognitive language process continues progressively into late adulthood onto ever more complex usages as we witness its application in literary texts, in idiomatic expressions at its most basic usages, thence onto increased complexities, technical jargon, etc. In this sense language, in similar manner to the vegetative world of the seedling, knows its earliest beginnings always and initially from the primeval, right through to an ever increasing sophistry.This basic premise is the only departure point wherefrom ‘language’ knows its origins. As such it is not the grammarian, the linguistician (my terminology), the lexicographer who ‘create’ language. The role of the language academic is that of observer, compiler, collator and analyst who, out of his labour produce sets of rules (grammars), make linguistic observations and compile dictionaries.As language is in a continuous state of change conditioned by and synchronising with its overall environment, and considering its autochthonous nature, the academic’s work should only ever serve as ‘guidelines’; never as sine qua non.Through its peculiar characteristic structural nature language acquires fresh meanings and new modes of application. It expands and contracts, drops the use of old terms and assumes new ones. It sometimes recoups old terminology, it borrows from other languages, it moulds new terms from old roots and so forth. The language scholar follows, analyses and explores this language behaviour according to its utility by its users.According to this layout, no self-respecting individual or group, should ever assume the initiative by dictating rigid rules, or worse, by legislating to the native speaker on the use of their own language. Such behaviour is tantamount to assuming control of an individual’s thought processes.I implore the reader to reflect, in all conscience upon the absurdity, if not the travesty, of imposing draconian decrees upon the sovereign sole owners of their own language. This is precisely what ‘the absolute authority to change by law’ section of the Kunsill Act does to the ‘sole owners’, the indigenous Maltese people.This rigid approach to our unique Maltese speech community is unflatteringly symptomatic of psychological and intellectual insecurity; not exactly a desirable stance for academe.The spoken word always precedes the written expression. The resulting graphic form of language is no more than humanity’s marvellous albeit imperfective way of realising meaningful sounds through written representation.With reference to Maltese, it is a pity that Aquilina, in his wisdom, chose to refer to our language as ‘mixed’. For which living language on this planet has never been influenced by other tongues? Even the seemingly isolated aboriginal languages of Australia have strong traces within their structures, of linguistic inroads from neighbouring peoples.This rigid approach to our unique Maltese speech community is unflatteringly symptomatic of psychological and intellectual insecurityCloser to home, on the European continent, which language is more ‘mixed’ than English? For if one were to extract the Latin, Italian, German, Greek and French content of English you are left with a smattering of unintelligible jumble of word sounds.Even Malta’s closest language neighbour, Italian. How conscious are those among us who have a working knowledge of Italian, of the significant Latin, Greek and Arabic content this language has adopted? Look at the Slavic languages.I once witnessed a former neighbour of mine in Sydney, a Croat, in a lively discussion with two other men – a Czech and a Pole. He later informed me that each of them had been speaking their own language to one another with the minimum of interference to their mutual comprehension. My point is the multiple interfluidity of human language in all its spoken variations without excluding widespread cross-cultural blendings throughout history.It is unfortunate that Aquilina’s ubiquitous reference has inadvertently opened the gates to superficial and at times supercilious argumentation, usually emanating from the ‘uninitiated’ purportedly ‘in defence of’ Maltese. This unintentional consequence has all too often led to irritating amateurish, irrelevant and unsubstantiated claims about Maltese, causing irrelevant deviations in a supposedly rational discussion.Ever since the coming of the Normans circa 1090 right through to the early mid-16th century with the coming of the Knights in 1530, continental language inroads into our Maltese idiom had been mostly confined to official documentations. Such linguistic influence had not yet impacted to any significant degree upon the spoken word.The local indigenous Maltese had largely carried on with their day-to-day living without much social interaction with their occupying powers, except for a minimalist section of the local population, the landed gentry. Hence for centuries, ever since the final Arab settlement from 870 onwards, whatever was the local spoken idiom at that moment soon became overwhelmed by the language of Islam.Following the cessation of the Crusades, the Knights’ raison d’être had diminished into ‘containing’ the spread of Islam and corsairing. The formal expulsion of the Moslems from Malta in 1224 (by this time many descendants of the original invading Arabs had intermarried with local Maltese folk and converted to Christianity, while some secretly remained faithful to their Islamic beliefs), the dominance of the Knights’ presence in such large numbers, together with their wealth and high culture, quickly began to influence the traditional local way of life, in every aspect and not least the local idiom.The fact that large numbers of Maltese were employed in the Knights’ corsairing, the widescale linguistic exposure of these large numbers of Maltese to the various language forms throughout Mediterranean shores, began making inroads into the local spoken Maltese idiom of the time.This direct social interaction over the entire two-and-a-half centuries of the Order’s stay until 1798, Maltese as a vibrant national language marked its point of departure along a more intellectually oriented future and a more sophisticated form of delivery.Our treasured Cantilena (circa 1450) is a good example of such language development while simultaneously verifying the yet relatively negligible influence Italian and other Latinate languages had encroached upon Maltese.Other documents peripheral to the Cantilena such as Wettinger’s Acta Iuratorum, Fiorini’s Documentary Sources and Cassola’s Vallicelliana et al, to mention only some of the known sources, have served to enhance the scholar’s insight into the developmental state of the Maltese language prior to and during the Knights’ presence in Malta.Our current ‘perceived’ dilemma with Maltese, though inroads from English had already been in practice from the days of Aquilina and his contemporaries, have been exacerbated by the never before action taken by the Kunsill in imposing its singular language views by legislation, in direct confrontation with all native Maltese speakers.Furthermore, the conceited response to the genuine and widespread public outcry against such action by certain academic individuals unfortunately engendered undesirable, unwanted and unnecessary mutual distrust. So deep have these antagonistic feelings run that many of us, myself not excluded, feel that as a direct consequence to these machinations, we can no longer rely upon the experts’ (who on earth is an expert anyway) savoir faire.Summarily, the removal from the ‘Act incorporating the Kunsill’, of the section appertaining proclamation by gazettal in the Government Gazette of all matters relevant to the usage of Maltese, should remain a non-negotiable factor in appeasing broad spectrum public anxiety and in correcting an indubitable wrong.Hence the reinvigoration of true scholarship of Maltese, through the discontinuance of capricious legal interference in a national affair that is and should remain, the sole ownership of the indigenous Maltese speaker is paramount.Finally, bearing in mind all the aforesaid and having due regard to our supposed liberation from our past colonial history, we must now not succumb anew to pseudo-colonial demands of the EU, namely in matters of our treasured tongue through preposterous and insidiously contrived justification of words like Netherlandjani.I say to those responsible for this attempted interference into a nation’s sovereign language, especially from sources outside Malta’s jurisdiction: “Hands off. We shed our colonial rule in 1964 and reinforced it in 1979!”

Roderick Bovingdon is a professional linguist, specialised in Maltese at the University of Malta.

Recently, PM Joseph Muscat issued a statement saying that the Maltese government was discussing the possibility of reinstating Italian as the third official language of the Republic of Malta.

The most intelligent thing I've heard in months! I hope that this government, notwithstanding the mediocrity of day-to-day affairs, pursues this important cultural step in the formation of Nova Europa. Culture influences politics.

This is the best piece of news I've heard since the Trump victory. Surprising it is coming from the Squalids - but then, the Hypoocrites have no ideology e sono timorosi.. The PM, though ostensibly a Socialist, has the courage to undertake bold moves, like this one.

Italian as a National Language, along with English and the rapidly disappearing Cuqlajta, will give the Maltese more articulation, more choice. Give them the power to elevate themselves from the puerile to the erudite.The power to Think about the higher things in life - power to express these thoughts better - and the moral fibre to act on such Ideas.

The PM needs to be congratulated on this move - the right move at the Cultural level. And Culture does effect Politics and all that follows. We wish the PM well and urge him to proceed with installing Italian, questa lingua bellisima e tenera, as our National language.

I sure do hope that this government conducts realpolitik and not play the democratic card. For the sake of us all, the reinstatement of Italian should not be put to a nationwide vote but be passed as a constitutional amendment in Parliament forthwith.

Exalting the mediocrity of this unevolved people by a referendum would only end in tragedy - much like the referendum on integration with Britain and not unlike the referendum on accession to the European Union. The people have been so Arabicised with a false nationhood that they would see such an implementation as a threat rather than a long-term investment.

And do you think that 80% of our Maltese Population, the Gahan majority, would vote for this?Don't be naive - this is a low quality population - Arabic in Culture, thinking and speaking Arabic - and to make it worse, Christian Cretins. Questa e una battaglia di Cultura, che si vince imponendo L'Alto sul Basso, e non vice versa.